Jake Tapper Reports Trump Wasn’t Unanimously Elected Kennedy Center Chair – Despite President’s Claim
President Donald Trump was not unanimously elected to chair the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington as he claimed Wednesday afternoon, CNN reported.
According to network anchor Jake Tapper, multiple board members either voted against Trump helming the culturally significant venue or abstained.
In a Truth Social post Wednesday afternoon a week after Trump announced he would run the Kennedy Center, he wrote:
President Donald J. Trump was just unanimously elected Chairman of the Board of the prestigious Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The President stated, “It is a Great Honor to be Chairman of The Kennedy Center, especially with this amazing Board of Trustees. We will make The Kennedy Center a very special and exciting place!”
On CNN’s AC360, anchor Anderson Cooper welcomed Tapper aboard with information he uncovered on the matter.
“Well, the votes to make Donald Trump President Trump the chairman of the Kennedy Senator Kennedy Center was not unanimous as he said it was,” Tapper said. “There were some votes that were abstentions. There were some votes against.” Tapper said Trump had packed the board of the center with “loyalists” and added:
So it was an overwhelming vote in favor of him. And then there were two votes after that. President Trump called in in the middle of the call. The first was to get rid of the current director, Deborah Rutter, who by all accounts, has done a really good job as director of the Kennedy Center. She was set to retire in August anyway, but basically, to fire her and then to replace her with Ric Grenell. And the president called in the midst of the voting on that and spoke for about four or four and a half minutes.
Tapper obtained audio of Trump addressing the Kennedy Center board by phone.
“I think we’re going to do something very special,” Trump said of the venue. “It got very woke-y, and some people were not happy with it, and some people refused to go.”
Watch above via CNN.
